Reconnaissance projectiles, including unattended ground sensors (UGS), have been developed for military use to satisfy the persistent need for reconnaissance, particularly in war situations. An exemplary need is for the prolonged deployment of the reconnaissance projectiles, while maintaining the survivability of the electronic components and sensors housed within the reconnaissance projectiles.
As used herein, a reconnaissance projectile is an unmanned monitoring platform that is often used for various military activities, such as terrain surveillance, troop movement, and target identification. The reconnaissance projectile can include a plurality of sensors. The reconnaissance projectile transmits the acquired sensor data, wirelessly, to a remote unit for analysis and use in field operations.
While numerous types of reconnaissance devices have been proposed, their main function is the general aerial reconnaissance over a target area. These reconnaissance devices may, in certain instances, be delivered to the target location by hand placement or by aerial deployment. Such delivery methods, while efficient for larger reconnaissance devices, may prove to be not feasible or inordinately costly and inaccurate to certain extent, particularly for distributing smaller reconnaissance devices over the target location within an enemy territory, or over a terrain that may be too difficult to reach by foot, such as in a mountainous region.
Higher accuracy in the placement of the reconnaissance devices is desirable to provide accurate peripheral surveillance of the target location.
There is therefore a need for a ground surface reconnaissance projectile which is completely inert, with an electronics package configuration that is designed to survive the gun launch and impact induced forces, while being able to persistently relay reconnaissance data over a long range, for an extended period of time after landing. The need for such a reconnaissance projectile has heretofore remained unsatisfied.